My name is Aaron Kronis and I work for Wpromote in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) division.
I just arrived home to Los Angeles late last night after spending the past three days in Austin, Texas for the SXSW Interactive Media conference.
I was there to film an episode of ‘RockStartup‘ after winning a contest from Shoemoney and Izea.
Everyone was there from all the major (and minor wannabe) companies, where the right application just might take off, if launched properly. I learned about several interesting new companies and met a lot of people from different, well known groups. One of the funnier things I was asked to do (prior to receiving the prize money and hotel key) was to wear a white t-shirt and ask all the bloggers to sign it with their sites and get their business cards after having them do something for the show, like beat box or something similar.
This was where I got a whole bunch of business cards from the folks in the ‘bloghouse’ located in a room accessible only by a secret elevator in the convention center, separated from the other normal elevators. Hey, it’s not every day that someone like Guy Kawasaki pays a woman he knows twenty bucks to find out who I am and write on me!
(photos by Jeremy Schoemaker)
Being involved in the SEO side of things, I’ll discuss some of the things I’ve noticed lately about the ‘movers and shakers’ in the industry. As I meet new people who are in the world of blogging, SEO and blog monetization, it occurred to me to start paying attention to what sites people actually use. Comparing the business cards of the many people I met showed that a lot of the serious folks are all using several things along with different types of cards. I saw a lot of ‘moo cards’ showing up lately (the smaller ones that look like a stick of gum):
- flickr
- AIM
- skype
- their own blogs
- gmail
One of the newer things I found out about at this conference was ‘utterz.com‘ – a service that allows you to blog from your mobile phone by emailing a picture, then making a phone call and leaving a voice message that will end up on your blog in a single post, providing both actions take place within ten minutes of each other.
I also was able to sneak into a session where the artist Moby was discussing his music licensing for film and television. I learned that he is very philanthropic in his ways with a FREE site for film students to use his music called mobygratis.com that doesn’t charge anything for licensing for students, unless the film makes money, in which case the royalties go to the Humane Society. He was an entertaining speaker and seemed like a good person, which can be hard to find in the dying, cutthroat music industry.
All in all, it was very interesting to meet a lot of these blogger types and rock out with them. Along with the Izea film crew for RockStartUp, we even got to attend a Rock Band (the video game) party at club Six.
photo by Leora
I was happy to sing and enjoy the event VIP style, with open bar and lots of music and blogger types in attendance, along with the owner of the Mavericks.
Until next time,
Your friendly neighborhood Rockstar SEO
The post South by Southwest Interactive Media Conference – report from Austin, Texas appeared first on The Wpromoter.